CRISES IN EDUCATION: Some Unique Changes in Education Coalitions

SOME UNIQUE CHANGES IN EDUCATION COALITIONS

A Few Practical Solutions for a Decayed, Dying, and Obsolete System

BY J. S. REED PhD

In the evolution of Public Schools, several articles have been written as to the degraded state that not only many schools are in, but the entire educational system as well. The problems with student abusive behaviors, illiteracy, truancy, cheating, and other experiences within the classroom have been well documented. Within the educational setting there is also a lack of reinforceable (and consistent) limit setting and inadequate or meaningless consequences to inappropriate behaviors by students.

Several venues for dealing with these "types" of students have been attempted over the years: Continuation, Alternative schools, Opportunity schools, Occupational programs, and eventually charter (semi-private) schools have all striven to find a solution to the large public school setting which has now become an impediment to effective education and learning while unintentionally fostering gang, drug, and abusive activities.

With high school dropout rates in some communities exceeding 50%, there has been a philosophy of "maintain the potential dropout in the school at all costs". Unfortunately, that cost has been the educational setting itself as well as the intellectual and interpersonal destruction of those students who were not at risk of dropping out. It is also true that education is the single most effective means to undermine later criminal behavior, but when the school can no longer deliver an education, then this behavioral element within the school that is destroying the capacity to teach and learn must be seen and dealt with in a corrections- educational setting, not in an public-educational setting.

Though finger-pointing abounds, this essay into this black hole of concern is determined to provide the first truly practical and effective alternatives to education that have been offered in decades. However, the suggestions made herein will necessitate changes in the law and a new and effective form of cooperation between the schools, juvenile corrections, the mental health community, politicians, and parents of students, all of which have responsibility for the problems and their solution.

I) PRESENT RESOURCES & PROBLEMS

1A) Education - Teachers

The modern teacher is inundated with expectations that take them out of the classroom (CEU's, Technology update courses, Staff meetings, Administration meetings, Parent-Teacher meetings, IEP and SE meetings, Testing meetings, "Teaching Technique" courses, etc.), all of which detract from the teacher's ability to educate the students in their care. On top of this, they are often utilized as state and federal test- proctors several times a year for everything from proficiency exams to standards exams to placement tests. It is not uncommon for EVERY teacher to lose AT LEAST TWO WEEKS each school year just for these reasons alone - which then require a substitute teacher. Added to this, another two weeks of personal time and sick leave (not surprisingly, staff illness is more common in schools than in hospitals) and the individual teacher is out of the classroom nearly an entire month! Furthermore, teachers are expected to adapt to the most diverse and changing student environment in history, with international students arriving who have few or no English skills, questionable math skills, behavioral issues, social issues, and cultural values that often clash with the school environment. In many schools, it is not uncommon for as many as 60 languages and dialects to be spoken at home by the students. And with this as an environment, the teacher is expected to exist on one of the poorest base salaries per degree and per years of education and training of any "professional".

Added to this is the relentless CEU requirement for licensure, the limitless meetings for skill "upgrading", the yearly changes to curricula due to changes in state and federal standards, meetings for troubled and troubling students, mandatory adjunct duties, etc.

Teachers are also in the bind of balancing the practical needs of administration and the emotional needs of parents (especially single parents and parenting grandparents), the statutory limits of the juvenile justice system and the need for self-protection, the compassion for the hurting child, and always with the ever present threat of litigation and accusation. It should be of no surprise that a recent (2006) study of teachers is demonstrating "burnout" beginning at only 5 years in the school setting.

1B) Education - Administration

Educational administrators (such as Principals and VP's) were usually also teachers at one time so they have an intimate knowledge of the teachers' plights. However, the upper echelon of education administration is also highly political and the administrator is often pushed and pulled to make decisions that are thankless. Precariously balanced between school boards, parents, classified personnel, individual teachers, teacher's unions, the media, police and security staff, and state and federal education boards, the well meaning administrator is doomed to fail in the eyes of at least one of these groups. No administrator can please "all the people all the time". With the political nature of the job, some administrators do not enter into this form of service with anything but an eye on eventual advancement to a district or state appointment while still others revert back to teaching - preferring to be "out of the crosshairs" of so many disparate unhappy groups. Thus, many administrators are "temporary" or are acting as intermediates - much like long-term substitute teachers in the classroom. They become figureheads but offer the school little or no focus or opportunity for real intellectual growth. The ones who enter into administration with a goal of honing and refining the school often find themselves restricted and being swept into a riptide of emotions and frustration from the groups all vying for final say.

In most cases, the administration is excessively interested in being liked by students and relies on negotiation rather than limit setting, which works well among adults and in general business circles but in the school undermines the classroom teacher by providing the limit breaking student with further chances to "work the system" since there is inconsistent, little, or no teacher supportive, responsive action by the administration.

2) Students

Teachers at all levels and grades are now coping with students that would have been removed from the educational system a generation or even a decade ago. Students that would have been in Special Education, Remedial Programs, Continuation Schools, and even Juvenile Corrections facilities are now "mainstreamed" in the regular classroom and the teacher is expected to create separate educational plans for these students and maintain them in the classroom, in spite of behavior that is disruptive, defiant, abusive, and even assaultive. High school teachers are frequently intimidated or harassed by students stealing or destroying the teacher's personal materials (often in tandem with one student distracting the teacher), by using tangential threatening statements (meant to be overheard), with non-verbal gestures (ominous stares), and even outright physical means (visiting the teacher while alone, standing between the teacher and the exit while "requesting" a grade improvement, or assault outside the campus). Teachers also are forced to endure parents that have raised their children without limits or respect for others, and who want others to believe their children are responsible and conscientious students. These parents go to no end (including harassing and "reporting" the teacher to administration and litigation) to assure that their child receives more attention, time, and personal investment than any other student, demanding "documentation" to "prove" a teacher's contentions regarding a student's behavior, efforts, and performance. Furthermore, the lack of recourse by elementary teachers to hold back students more than one year to obtain remedial assistance leaves High School teachers with the impossible task of educating 9th Graders with educational levels ranging from 3rd to 8th Grade, and in some communities with almost a third of those students speaking English only as a second language. The refusal to follow directions, outright defiance, violations of school codes regarding dress and electronic devices, unabated tardiness, and cheating are epidemic.

3) Parents & Guardians

With many parents having poor or severely inadequate role models for parenting, in multiple sequential marriages, having present or past problems with addiction or mental illness (diagnosed or not), and in economic binds that require a supreme economic effort to maintain subsistence without state or federal economic aid - parents are lucky to provide their own children with any quality interaction, realistic and effective parenting, role modeling, tutoring, or emotional assistance. In many homes, unlimited use of television and the Internet becomes the standard tool for passing the time and many (if not most) parents are in abject denial about the emotional and intellectual state of their children. Most parents would be appalled if they were to witness how their children actually behave in the classroom, if concealed security cameras were installed for observation. The ones not appalled would likely not care at all. Single parents (an increasing percentage) are the most severely affected because the entire burden of discipline, role modeling, supervision, and limit setting falls upon them - thus, they expect the school (both teachers and admin.) to take over the parenting role that they cannot fulfill. However, these same parents maintain a blind refusal to allow the schools to employ the needed discipline and limits that follow with each infraction. In many schools, though the rules are quite clear regarding violence and drug abuse, less than 10% of the students that "should be" expelled, are actually expelled. If suspended or expelled, the child is often left to run the streets or relax at home unsupervised, without enforceable parental consequences for the suspension or expulsion.

Furthermore, many of the topic materials taught in the high schools are beyond the intellectual range of most parents. Though they may have learned the material at some time within the last 20 years, they are often of no help to the student requiring assistance with homework.

4) Media

From the angry lyrics of songs promoting a short lifespan, to the "dumbing" effects of canned-laughter television, to the absence of teaching of rapid cursive handwriting and reduced effective vocabularies, to the acronym and abbreviated discourse on the Internet and the universal use of "z" in possessives and plurals - education is defined by the philosophy, "If you can't use it today, it's not worth knowing." Although the media has been of concern since the warnings of Edward R. Murrow, for the last ten years it has been the unrestrained recipient of the patronage of self-serving political and religious interests. Substance programming has been relegated to PBS and NPR and a few cable stations, newspapers pander to reams of advertizing by mega-conglomerates with censoring owners, radio relates the expression of hate-filled rhythms or religious-political dogma, and the Internet is a swarm of pornography, violence, and urban legend. Though still claiming a support of education, the media actively undermines the attitudes necessary to educationally succeed: dedication, effort, sacrifice, study, practice, and self-restraint. Media advertizing encourages irresponsibility and reckless affluence in lifestyle without the means to attain it - thus fomenting frustration and resentment in the effort required for even small successes. Even students and the parents of students who are media savvy are media assaulted by proxy, by the media driven expectations and attitudes of student-peers in the school.

The Internet has also provided another dilemma with its access to purchasable written works and those which can be plagiarized as well as the avoidance of homework by false or masked utilization, such as gaming, IMing, chatting, or surfing. Parents rarely have the time, energy, or knowledge to verify or monitor such Internet usage when the student is adept at chat codes (KPC, POTS, PAW) and minimizing multiple screens to hide the time wasted.

5) Student Peers

With stolen prescription drugs and alcohol, rampant school violence and intimidation, gang affiliations, unwarranted sexually explicit expression, gender and racial hostility, and an attitude of disrespect for both adults and peers - most students who intend to excel find themselves with few social and interpersonal options. However with the added peer labeling that results in relentless hostility both in and outside the classroom, goal- oriented and responsible students are more the exception than the rule. It is very unusual to meet students that have realistic goals and a conscious and prescribed plan for attaining them. Those that do are often loners, have encompassing religious affiliations, isolate with enclaves of rare like-minded individuals, or have limited school interactions outside of the classroom.

Furthermore, there is a now a reinforcement of failure that socially binds males to being inept and incompetent by tying them into the care-taking attitudes of the females in the classroom. This is a rather recent phenomena (within the last 10 years) and entails encouraging males to be unprepared for classroom accomplishments and achievement if they wish to have a social relationship with the class females. By coming to class without paper, pencils, books, notes, and other required items, the males have an open opportunity to interact with the females by requesting their assistance - which the females often feel obligated (or intimidated) to provide. Prepared and responsible males thus lose out on that social interaction by attending class with an objective of scholastic success rather than social success; for males to succeed at one, they learn they must fail at the other. This inept, unprepared, bungling male is now reinforced as the most common image on traditional television programming.

Akin to the Internet cheating already mentioned, cheating in class and on homework is virtually a given in most high school classes and among as many as 70% of the students. It is an expected form of advancement and many students feel no compunction about taking an assignment from a conscientious student and copying it, numb-for-number, word-for-word. This leaves parents wondering, "If my child did all their homework, why did they fail the exam?"

The teacher, unwilling to openly state, "Your child extorted the answers from another student", is left with the option of giving continuous make-up exams (of the same problems) to avoid the parent-teacher conflict, with the cheating student manipulating both parent and teacher. Teachers often avoid this dilemma by only noting if homework was completed, without even grading it for correctness.

On top of this is the use of i-Pods and MP3 players that have downloaded MP3 files of taped notes for cheating as well as cell phones for text messaging questions and answers with peers when teachers aren't looking. Cheating is so prevalent during exams that as many as 4 versions of exams are necessary for any one class..

6) Police & Juvenile Services

With political influences that waver between radical and reactionary philosophies, juveniles are often unaware of the behaviors that can lend them to being adjudicated as adults or as children. Bullying on campus is epidemic, with surrogate friends of the bullies being available to continue the intimidation, should any one assailant be selected for suspension or expulsion. Furthermore, bullying and intimidation have been diagnosed as a mental health issue rather than a criminal-behavioral aspect of personality, thus keeping the offending student on campus until significant interpersonal damage has been done to one or more victims. Victims of bullying and intimidation have higher rates of depression, addiction, lower self-esteem, and more anxiety disorders than non-victims. Since sociopathy is rarely diagnosed before the age of 14, and seldom before the age of 16 - police and juvenile services are rarely available for intervention until a substantial history of victimizing has been established.

One of the more startling moves has been the advancement of the "mutual suspension" rule for fighting, which reinforces and rewards the bully's behavior by making suspension mandatory for the bully and their victim. Bullies routinely have lower GPA's, lower test scores, poorer class attendance, and exhibit more disruptive classroom behaviors. By targeting "better students" this rule succeeds in doubly victimizing the target, first by intimidation and secondly by punishing any attempts at self-defense. As a rule, administrations are completely inadequate in preventing bullying (in actuality encouraging it by threatening retaliatory administrative sanctions against the victim), even after being reported by the victim and will remain so until the mental health model is replaced by the corrections model.

7) Political Boards & Committees

With the bottom line being the dollar (and reelection), many School Boards will choose to create unsafe schools and classrooms, rather than lose the taxation allotment provided by the federal and state government to keep a child off a campus (whether via an expulsion or suspension). Furthermore, state and local standards of behavior toleration, along with the frequent legal suits against the boards and districts, leave the school boards and committees with few alternatives than to pass the problem off to school counselors, teachers, and ineffective IEPs whose whole objective is not education but attendance. School board members are often well meaning but naive parents and business people who attempt to mold a school district to the image of what they believe it should be, without knowing exactly what it is. Visits by school board members are often cleansed by calls to teachers before the individual classroom visit making their assessment unrealistic. Furthermore, few school board members have any significant classroom teaching experience and even fewer have experience in juvenile corrections education.

In most communities, classroom teachers, administrators, and school employees are excluded from becoming School Board trustees.

8) Political & Legal Standards

If nothing else, schools are political institutions - driven by the expectations of the community that they serve. From schools that are restricted in the teaching of evolution to others that chastize teachers for mentioning the word "God" in any context outside of a philosophy or humanities course, teachers often walk a fine between unemployment and tenure. Untenured teachers can find themselves unemployed for any reason from budget to administrative conflicts to grading complaints by parents. Grading has often become a standard of compliance rather than accomplishment in order to avoid the undesired intervention by parents. Advancing students into grades until they fail to succeed at high school standardized exams has become the norm in many districts - with parents then wondering, "Why wasn't I told sooner?" The philosophy that students are entitled to passing grades rather than being expected to earn them has resulted in obscene grade inflation, with A+ being awarded to some students in order to compensate for the student given the C grade who in actuality failed. Schools that award grades that match the performance on standardized exams are usually penalized for their honesty and accuracy, rather than rewarded.

9) The Mental Health Community

Instead of working with Police and Juvenile Services, the mental health community finds themselves frequently in opposition with legal services' objectives. With understandable objectives of keeping "disturbed" or "behaviorally disabled" students in school, there is a continuous misdiagnosis of behavioral disorders as mental health disorders, as well as the use of ineffective psychoactive drugs in treating students who need consequential behavioral interventions. Administrators who are under pressure to maintain educational dollars, place pressure on counselors and school psychologists to maintain classroom attendance, regardless of the behaviors of the student. The lack of a meaningful mental health system relationship with both legal and educational services has further placed all three in opposition with one another.

Because of this hostility between services and over-emphasis on mental health rather than corrections intervention, the diagnosis of ADHD or ADD has been preferred to Oppositional-Defiant in children under 10, Oppositional-Defiant over Conduct Disorder in children under 14, Conduct Disorder over Antisocial Personality Disorder in children under 18, until the student is finally correctly labeled ASPD (antisocial personality disorder) when diagnosed by a corrections psychologist. As much as it grates on the egos of mental health practitioners, the behavioral diagnosis of Conduct Disorder and not ADD must be made sooner in the educational life of a child, and the appropriate behavioral limits put in place before a history of victimizing others is allowed to progress unheeded for upwards of a decade.

The mental health community must begin to defer more often to corrections and remove the behaviorally anti-social student from the IEP's and Special Education formats that work effectively with developmentally disabled students (such as Down's, Ausberger's and Autistic students). Indeed, the student that sneaks out of the home at night to play video games at a friend's house, sleep with a boy/girlfriend, or engage in drug using, and then attend school the next day with a confrontational and disruptive attitude are NOT appropriate for a mental health intervention. Far too much mental health intervention time is devoted to these students, leaving the depressed, uninvolved, anxious, phobic, and traumatized students without campus mental health assistance because they do NOT create the classroom disruption that would warrant an intervention. Far too much of their limited available time is spent by school counselors and psychologists with un- or misdiagnosed Conduct Disordered and Antisocial students for them to have the ability to truly assist those lost students with the true and treatable mental health issues.

10) Auxiliary Educational Assistance

Students of all ages used to rely on school tutoring services provided by older students, after-school assistance by teachers, or outside services by semi-retired teachers or professional tutors. With the average costs of professional in-home tutors ranging at $40-50 an hour, the fears of safety and liability, the increases in the breadth and complexity of knowledge required (especially in high schools), the often weak subject foundations of older students, and the after-school adjunct duties or professional responsibilities of classroom teachers - students requiring remedial or intermittent assistance are more likely than not, to slip further behind and NOT get any needed individual services.

Because of the exceptional requirements of technology, the costs of transportation, the behavioral propensities of many students, and the legal hindrances and threats, many college students, office professionals, and un- or under-employed teachers will decline to offer independent and individualized tutoring. The parents of students requiring tutoring in one or two specific subject areas are then obligated to signing up for tutoring courses through mega- tutoring agencies costing several thousands of dollars and locking the parents into loans and obligations that weigh heavily on the student - often worded by the parents as a punishment. Furthermore, these agencies are only available in the large metropolitan areas, leaving smaller cities and rural areas with no assistance for the student with single subject tutoring needs.

11) Philosophical Biases

Simply because certain gender, ethnic, or cultural similarities exist between two populations, dilemmas and solutions may be significantly different. Students from impoverished inner city communities that are 90% one ethnic or cultural group are not experiencing identical dilemmas as the student from a peripheral middle-class group with the same ethnicity. In short, the student that is forced to extort or panhandle for money to eat is NOT experiencing the same educational dilemmas as the child that has $700 invested in their shoes, MP3 player, video cel-phone, and team jacket even though they both may likely attend class without pencils, paper, or book. If they are attending the same school, the behavioral interventions with the impoverished student will NOT be effective with the entitled student and may actually increase the problems with that student, regardless of their ethnic, racial, cultural, or gender similarities.

One of the greatest philosophical dead-ends is the overemphasized and naive belief that self-esteem is the single most important asset of a student within the classroom setting. The part of the equation that has been lost is the necessity for self-esteem to be tied to self- accomplishment, which is, in turn, tied to sincere effort. Prisons are filled with inmates whose self-esteem is based on entitlement rather than accomplishment.

Although different societies, vested interest groups, government agencies, and educational departments have philosophies rooted in historic perspectives - these perspectives are self-reinforcing and are often in opposition to the reality of the present environment and are therefore doomed to solutions that are mis-timed or altogether ineffective.

Simplifying any educational dilemma only to one criteria such as gender, ethnicity, culture, or race is the epitome of prejudicial naivete, regardless of the source of that simplification.

II) SOLUTIONS

The following solutions would be assisted by implementing major changes from within the present educational system that have already been suggested in State and Federal Analyses but are not dependent upon them. Recent suggestions made by other groups include: Reducing the CEU requirement for teachers, Automatic credentialing of college teachers (with MS or PhD) for teaching in the secondary school with the single addition of a workshop in classroom management, Single-gender schools, Salary bonuses for those teaching in "high vacancy" positions (math, sciences, etc.), Smaller classrooms for students with behavioral difficulties, etc.

However, since the educational system cannot seem to correct its flaws from within, the following suggestions are a few possible solutions to the above breakdown in the educational system, from outside the campus setting.

OPTION 1) Public-Corrections School Coalition

Beginning with 5th-6th Grade behavioral problem interventions, at least one school in the district should be mandated as the "corrections" school that employs a full system of strict behavioral limits with similar class sizes as the public school setting but with numerous instructional aides. For all intentions, it is a juvenile corrections educational center, with the added ability of students to return home after school. This school will focus only on "the basics" and socially appropriate behaviors - and not incur the added expense of art, music, and extra-curricular sports programs, nor any after-school activities (dances, homecoming, field trips, etc.). Thus, adjunct duties of teachers will be confined to assisting other teachers with classroom discipline. Though this option may reconstruct what was previously known as a "Continuation" school - the loss of such schools and the main-streaming of behaviorally disordered individuals has led to the degradation of the conventional public school setting. Students literally earn the right to re-attend a traditional public school on a probationary period. Placement into the Public-Corrections school is based not on any single incident but rather on incident plus disciplinary recommendation by the student's teachers (a rating scale by the teachers will recommend transfer to the Public-Corrections school for a periods of 30 day intervals). Making placement in part via teacher's recommendation and not due to any single incident will prevent any "good" student from being removed from the Public School setting for defending themselves when assaulted.

This option will reinforce that the Public School education may be a right but can be amended due to social behaviors that are invasive and disruptive to the education of the other students. The Public-Corrections school reinforces the behaviors that are appropriate for the traditional classroom and campus. Some students will spend the entire year in the Public- Corrections school, others will continue to become embroiled in conflict and be placed in a traditional Corrections school while many will transfer back into the traditional Public School setting. Furthermore, the Public-Corrections school can function as a half-way house model for the juvenile offender exiting juvenile corrections into the public education setting.

OPTION 2) Community Para-Educational Coalition

Certain ethnic and racial enclaves within certain communities have the means and availability to assist students living within that community in a fashion that can be of significant benefit, in a means that incorporates the language and culture of that community. This can be of exceptional benefit to Arabic, Chinese, American Indian, Persian, and other groups that often coexist in a collective, due to desire or necessity.

At present, the assistance given to students in such communities is by volunteer donation of time and money. Such assistance can be continuous or intermittent and is dependent on well meaning but often unskilled help and by those with limited and questionable knowledge.

An educational agreement that could provide educational funds for classroom teachers to operate as liaisons within these local ethnic communities as well as maintaining a reduced but formal classroom roster. This can facilitate the use of ESL techniques in communities with the option of offering pre-college curricula for foreign language requirements, large group tutoring of math with the assistance of a co-teacher or assistant that has the availability to translate into the common language of that community (much as a sign interpreter does in public schools). The applicability is almost limitless and only requires creativity and willingness by the culture intervention teachers.

The students in that community would still be in the traditional school setting but would either start later in the school day, end later, or have specific days allocated to cultural para-educational intervention within their community.

Funding would include the already available taxation dollars (which would increase because of increased attendance in the formal school setting and in the community site) federal and state dollars but would also be supported by collections within the ethnic community itself.

OPTION 3) Public-Home School Coalition

In most regions at present, classroom based teachers are excluded from the home school environment. Credentialed teachers are frequently used as advisors for home schooling parents but they rarely have direct educational contact with the students other than some testing and program evaluation. The only exception for this are those students that require home schooling due to medical issues severe enough to necessitate supervision or isolation. An alternative option for some teachers is to teach a reduced classroom load in favor of direct, in-home education of home schooled students. In this fashion, the classroom seated hours of direct instruction can be counted within the district funding, providing that accurate in-home attendance records are maintained. This also creates the much needed bond between home- school oriented parents concerned about a destructive school environment (especially those parents whose children have been assaulted) and public school teachers sincerely attempting to teach in it. It may be the only opportunity for both sides to agree on what is most important and pursue it cooperatively.

OPTION 4) Parental Instruction Coalition (PIC)

Another stage in the solution is to compensate for the failure of Charter Schools to maintain adequate testing and standards of accomplishment. Routinely, Charter Schools address the needs of students in the under 50 percentile, regardless of some of their claims to have "exceptional" students in their population.

Unlike the Charter School, the PIC has as its primary objective to save the student that is in the 50-99 percentile or the student that has that potential but is despairing or underperforming due to being coerced or intimidated in the public school setting.

Its novel approach is that the home schooling parents take a formal group approach to the education of their own and the other parents' children. This requires that the parents form a coalition based on the educational capabilities of the parents as a group.

Five parent-teachers are needed with topic specific skills (1 Math, 1 Foreign Lang, 1 Eng, 1 Sci, 1 Art). Other parent-teachers with less specific instructional knowledge and skills are required for remaining topics (Phys Ed, Soc. Studies, Humanities, and the labs). The hourly teaching requirement for each parent is a mandatory 4 hours per week for the first child, with an additional 2 hours per week per child.

If sufficient parent-teachers are available, then some parents can opt-out by submitting a pre-determined amount into a fund for topic assistance and field trips.

Topic Assistance funds are for teachers and tutors that need to be called in for higher grade materials that may be beyond the level of expertise of the parent-teachers (physics, calculus and pre-calculus, chemistry, advanced art and foreign language, etc.). This fund is especially helpful for students in grades 10-12.

Using the home school format of materials, parent-teachers can organize materials presentations according to 3-year groupings (10th-12th Grade, 7th-9th Grade, 4th-5th-6th, 1st- 2nd-3rd) with the level of difficulty progressing with increases in grade. Upper grade level students can further be utilized as tutors for younger students.

Example Format (10th-12th Grade) Utilizing 35 hrs of instruction per week.
Mon: 2.5 hrs Math, 2.5 hrs Eng, 2 hrs Art
Tue: 2.5 hrs Soc Studies, 2 hrs Phys Ed, 2.5 hrs Science
Wed: 3 hrs Foreign Lang, 4 hrs. Humanities
Thur: 2 hrs Art Lab, 2.5 hrs Soc Studies Lab, 2.5 hrs Eng Lab
Fri: 1 hr Foreign Lang Lab, 2 hrs Phys Ed, 2.5 hrs Math Lab, 1.5 hr Sci Lab

It is also possible to combine the Public-Homeschool concept with the Parental- Instruction concept, which would allow the district to further receive at least a portion of available funds for those students who are being instructionally assisted and advised by the public school teacher, wishing a part-time assignment with Parental-Instructors in the group homeschool setting.

CLOSING COMMENTS

This brief synopsis of the educational system is by no means complete and is compiled from information collected over the last two years (2005-6) from published reports, direct classroom experience, conferences, discussions with education administration, interaction with students of all ages, reactions to presentations, and discussions with parents and professionals in the field. There are many items and directions that can be elucidated, debated, and probably need be clarified (especially for those not in the educational field), but hopefully what has been written will open more meaningful and effective dialogue among all parties and some helpful changes.

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